Better Hardware, worst Results

Hi,

I have a very tricky situation here. A client bought a Dell dual-machine
to be used as Database Server, and we have a cheaper machine used in
development. With identical databases, configuration parameters and
running the same query, our machine is almost 3x faster.

I tried to increase the shared_buffers and other parameters, but the
result is still the same. I would like to know what can I do to check
what can be "holding" the Dell server (HD, memory, etc). Both machines
run Debian Linux.

I'll post configuration details below, so you'll can figure my scenario
better.

==> Dell PowerEdge:
HD: SCSI
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 2791.292
cache size : 512 KB

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 2791.292
cache size : 512 KB

# free -m
total used free shared buffers
cached
Mem: 1010 996 14 0 98
506

==> Other machine:
HD: IDE
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.26GHz
stepping : 5
cpu MHz : 2262.166
cache size : 512 KB

#free -m
total used free shared buffers
cached
Mem: 439 434 4 0 16
395

--
+---------------------------------------------------+
| Alvaro Nunes Melo Atua Sistemas de Informacao |
| al_nunes(at)atua(dot)com(dot)br www.atua.com.br |
| UIN - 42722678 (54) 327-1044 |
+---------------------------------------------------+